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Thursday, October 13, 2016

Bob Dylan performs in Chicago in 1978. He is the first
American to claim the Nobel Prize in Literature since Toni Morrison won
in 1993.

Paul Natkin/Getty Images

Bob Dylan
has won the 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature. In doing so, the prolific
musician became the first American to win the prize in more than two
decades. Not since novelist Toni Morrison won in 1993 has an American
claimed the prize.

Dylan won the prize "for having created new
poetic expressions within the great American song tradition," according
to the citation by the Swedish Academy, the committee that annually
decides the recipient of the Nobel Prize. The academy's permanent
secretary, Sara Danius, announced the news Thursday.

The win comes as something of a shock. As usual, the Swedish
Academy did not announce a shortlist of nominees, leaving the betting
markets to their best guesses. And while Dylan has enjoyed perennial
favor as an outside shot for the award, few expected that the musician
would be the first to break the Americans' long dry spell — not least
because he made his career foremost on the stage, not the printed page. Read more....

Thursday, October 6, 2016

Public libraries

Olivier Laurent October 5, 2016

The renovated New York Public Library Rose Reading Room / Ryan Fitzgibbon

A group of Instagram photographers got an early look at the Rose Room

It all started with a piece of plaster. On May 30, 2014, a piece of
ceiling fell inside the New York Public Library Rose Reading Room. The
stunning landmark space was forced to close for “about two weeks.” That turned into two years.

Now, the Rose Room is finally ready for its reopening. And the
results are stunning. “I’ve been to the library for events or just to
explore the space prior to the closure of the Rose Main Reading Room,
but it’s clear that the heart and the history of the New York Public
Library stems from this two-city-block-wide study hall,” says Ryan
Fitzgibbon, the founder of Hello Mr. magazine. Read more...

Wednesday, October 5, 2016

Banned Books

Since the 1800s, attitudes about which books are “appropriate” for kids
to read have too often suppressed stories about different cultures and
life experiences. Comstock / Getty

Every year since 1982, an event known as Banned Books Week
has brought attention to literary works frequently challenged by
parents, schools, and libraries. The books in question sometimes feature
scenes of violence or offensive language; sometimes they’re opposed for
religious reasons (as in the case of both Harry Potter and the Bible). But one unfortunate outcome is that 52 percent of
the books challenged or banned in the last 10 years feature so-called
“diverse content”—that is, they explore issues such as race, religion,
gender identity, sexual orientation, mental illness, and disability. As a
result, the organizers of Banned Books Week, which started Sunday,
chose the theme “Celebrating Diversity” for 2016.

Since the
inception of the American children’s literature industry in the 1820s,
publishers have had to grapple with the question of who their primary
audience should be. Do kids’ books cater to parents and adult cultural
gatekeepers, or to young readers themselves? But as books that address
issues of diversity face a growing number of challenges, the related question of which children
both the industry and educators should serve has become more prominent
recently. Who benefits when Sherman Alexie’s The Absolutely TrueDiary of Part-Time Indian, which deals with racism, poverty, and disability, is banned for language and “anti-Christian content”? Who’s hurt when Jessica Herthel and Jazz Jennings’s picture book I Am Jazz, about a transgender girl, is banned?
The history of children’s book publishing in America offers insight
into the ways in which traditional attitudes about “appropriate” stories
often end up marginalizing the lives and experiences of many young
readers, rather than protecting them. Read more...